‘Putin’s Kleptocracy,’ by
Karen Dawisha
By RAJAN
MENONNOV. 25, 2014
Now in his third (nonconsecutive) presidential term,
Vladimir Putin presents himself as the strong and virtuous leader who rescued
Russia from the chaos, corruption, penury and weakness of the 1990s.
State-controlled news media and Kremlin spin doctors
disseminate this message diligently — and to good effect, judging from Putin’s
80 percent approval rating. But with “Putin’s Kleptocracy,” Karen Dawisha, a
respected scholar of Soviet and Russian politics at Miami University in Ohio,
seeks to shred this carefully constructed narrative.
Her verdict is not merely that Putin’s boast of having
built a potent, efficient state that fights for the little guy and against the
venality of the powerful is bunk. Her bedrock claims are that the essential
character of Putin’s system is colossal corruption and that he is a prime
beneficiary. The thievery, she says, has made him fabulously rich, along with a
coterie of trusted friends dating back to his days as a K.G.B. officer in
Communist East Germany, then as first deputy mayor in 1990s St. Petersburg,
then as head of the Federal Security Service.
In explaining the system’s workings, Dawisha
enumerates the standard shenanigans of crooked regimes: bribetaking from
domestic and foreign companies seeking business permits; kickbacks from
inflated no-bid contracts for state projects; privatization deals rigged to
enrich cronies who will later be cash cows for the Kremlin; illicit exports of
raw materials purchased at state-subsidized prices and sold for a killing;
“donations” from oligarchs eager to keep feeding at the government’s trough;
real estate scams yielding mega-profits and palatial homes; money laundering;
election-fixing; labyrinthine offshore accounts; lucrative partnerships with
the mob; and the intimidation, even elimination, of would-be whistle-blowers.
To prosper, Russia’s superrich must demonstrate
absolute loyalty to the president. As Mikhail Khodorkovsky and other tycoons
have discovered, the punishment for defiance is severe.
Dawisha won’t disappoint readers seeking examples of
industrial-size sleaze. She reckons Putin’s private wealth at $40 billion and
lists among his prized possessions yachts, planes and palaces — along with a
$700,000 wristwatch collection for good measure. As for the Friends of
Vladimir, Dawisha writes that “more than half of the $50 billion spent on the
Sochi Olympics simply disappeared into the pockets of Putin’s cronies.” The
Rotenberg brothers, Putin’s childhood chums, alone garnered $2.5 billion of the
outlay for the games.
Russia’s roster of 110 billionaires remains remarkably
static, even as the wealthy in other countries rise and fall. What these
plutocrats share are longstanding, close connections to Putin. And not a few
are former K.G.B. operatives themselves.
Dawisha’s charges are not entirely new: Her copiously
researched account relies on books, news reports, official documents, memoirs,
WikiLeaks and witness testimonies collected by Russian and foreign journalists.
The torrent of detail, some of it well known and peripheral to her kleptocracy
theme, can drown readers who are untutored in Soviet and Russian politics.
Still, “Putin’s Kleptocracy” is the most persuasive account we have of
corruption in contemporary Russia. Dawisha won’t be getting a Russian visa
anytime soon. Her indictment — even if it wouldn’t stand up in a court of law —
hits Putin where it really hurts.
He may cop to being an authoritarian (he boasts of
building a strong state), a nationalist (he wears a cross, preaches patriotism
and praises the Orthodox Church) and an empire builder (he brags about retaking
Crimea and is unapologetic about seeking a sphere of influence). But the
accusation that he’s a common crook, or even an uncommon one, is different —
and a charge he doesn’t treat lightly. That’s why Russian reporters avoid it,
especially as political controls have tightened, and why Dawisha’s original
publisher, Cambridge University Press, declined to print the book on the advice
of its lawyers worried about the possibility of legal action.
The true tragedy is that corruption, state-sponsored,
energy-driven and totaling hundreds of billions annually, has mortgaged
Russia’s future. Freedom has withered. Money for the investments urgently
needed to make Russia innovative and prosperous has been diverted to enrich a
few.
Alas, that’s what kleptocracies do.
GERUND : workings
Work (verb)-Working(verb)-Workings(noun)
Example : Rabin
works the king’s workings
Name : Achmad
Andika S.
Class : 4SA04
Npm : 17611923
